The metre of this is the same as in the Ormulum—
This book is nemned Ormulum, for thy that Orm hit wroughtè.
It is derived through the Latin from the Greek; it was made popular first through Latin rhyming verses which were imitated in the vernacular languages, Provençal, German, English. As it is a variety of ‘common metre’, it is easily fitted to popular tunes, and so it becomes a regular type of verse, both for ambitious poets and for ballad-minstrels like the author quoted above. It may be remembered that a country poet wrote the beautiful song on Yarrow from which Wordsworth took the verse of his own Yarrow poems—
But minstrel Burne cannot assuage
His grief, while life endureth,
To see the changes of this age
Which fleeting time procureth—
verse identical in measure with the Ormulum, and with the popular Irish street ballad, and with many more. So in the history of this type of verse we get the following relations of popular and literary poetry: first there is the ancient Greek verse of the same measure; then there are the Latin learned imitations; then there is the use of it by scholars in the Middle Ages, who condescend to use it in Latin rhymes for students’ choruses. Then comes the imitation of it in different languages as in English by Orm and others of his day (about 1200). It was very much in favour then, and was used often irregularly, with a varying number of syllables. But Orm writes it with perfect accuracy, and the accurate type survived, and was just as ‘popular’ as the less regular kind. Minstrel Burne is as regular as the Ormulum, and so, or very nearly as much, is the anonymous Irish poet of The Kerry Recruit.
What happened in the case of the Ormulum verse is an example of the whole history of modern lyric poetry in its earlier period. Learned men like St. Ambrose and St. Augustine wrote hymns for the common people in Latin which the common people of that time could understand. Then, in different countries, the native languages were used to copy the Latin measures and fit in to the same tunes—just as the English Cuckoo song corresponds to the Latin words for the same melody. Thus there were provided for the new languages, as we may call them, a number of poetical forms or patterns which could be applied in all sorts of ways. These became common and well understood, in the same manner as common forms of music are understood, e.g. the favourite rhythms of dance tunes; and like those rhythms they could be adapted to any sort of poetical subject, and used with all varieties of skill.
Many strange things happened while the new rhyming sort of lyric poetry was being acclimatized in England, and a study of early English lyrics is a good introduction to all the rest of English poetry, because in those days—in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries—may be found the origin of the most enduring poetical influences in later times.